Bulgarian Sign Language (in Bulgarian: "български жестомимичен език (БЖЕ)") is the language, or perhaps languages, of the deaf community in Bulgaria.
| Bulgarian Sign Language | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Bulgaria |
Native speakers | 21,000 (2021 DBS/DOOR/SIL)[1] (2014)[2] |
French Sign
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | bqn |
| Glottolog | bulg1240 |
Primary schools were established for the deaf. Russian Sign Language was introduced in 1910, and allowed in the classroom in 1945, and Wittmann (1991) classifies it as a descendant of Russian Sign.[3] However, Bickford (2005) found that Bulgarian Sign formed a cluster with Slovak, Czech, Hungarian, Romanian, and Polish Sign.[4] The language of the classroom is different from that used by adults outside,[2] and it is not clear if Wittmann and Bickford looked at the same language; nor, if one is derived from Russian Sign, if it is a dialect or if it creolized to form a new language.